


You Know That I Love You

by Morpheus626



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, Familial Abuse, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:09:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25055224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: The train scene goes as in canon. Eugene goes home, and is doing poorly. Snafu goes home, and is doing poorly. Both of them about two hours away from each other, pining and struggling with what the war left them and missing each other. Eugene after a few months of this, decides to go for broke and search out Snafu in New Orleans, in a desperate attempt to give himself a reason to keep on going.Warnings: mentions of suicidal ideation and suicide, mental familial abuse, depression, PTSD, alcohol abuse, people just generally falling apart and struggling to cope.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Kudos: 12





	You Know That I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> Some alternate universe type Sledgefu that came up thanks to my listening to Jozef Van Wissem again, let’s call it the NOLA AU for now (and in case I ever write more for it.) In case anyone wants to take a stab at the dark ambient album that inspired this, here’s the link: https://open.spotify.com/album/5jNbSZgz4n9V6SwmVz47I7. Listened to this one as well: https://open.spotify.com/album/4adWowJfRS0ScL68DzHLjM. Title of the fic comes from a track on this second album, actually. Go check out his stuff, dude did the soundtrack for Only Lovers Left Alive and is amazing.

His parents offer him the car, but he chooses the train instead. If he finds him again, and things go the way he hopes, then he knows he won’t be coming back. He knows his parents know this, can see the pain of it in their eyes as they offer the car one last time, as they drop him off at the train station in the dim early morning light. 

He thanks them, but boards the train, even as he can feel their eyes on him. They’re as supportive as they can bear to be, he knows that. They just want him happy, want to see him do something other than struggle to sleep, struggle to find the urge to do anything, to live. He wants that too, which is why he’s on the train at all. 

He doesn’t know Snafu’s address, or where to even start looking in New Orleans. And there are plenty of places to look. But as the train chugs along, the sun glinting through the window as he leans uncomfortably against it, he knows that there isn’t another option. Either he finds him, or…

He can’t quite say it out loud yet, though the other option rings clear and loud in his head. He’ll say it out loud if and when he has to, he decides. 

It isn’t far, by train. About three hours, and it baffles him. He was always this close to Snafu, but by some whim of the universe never met him until they were both under extreme duress and pain. 

The pain that plagues him now is different from the pain they already suffered, a result of it, but he wonders if the universe will do it again. Somehow lead him to Snafu’s door with little issue, knowing that the difference between doing so or not edges on life and death. 

But no trail emerges as he steps off the train, his hand sweating around the leather handle of his suitcase. It’s louder and more overwhelming than he expected. It’s like the battlefield though, he thinks. There’s nowhere else to go, every other path leads towards failure and/or death. All he can do is go forward into the thrum of it all, and hope he emerges successful in his task. 

Still, he fights the urge to find a place to sit and hide as he walks down the streets. Everyone seems polite and happy, and it isn’t them at all at fault. They’re just living their lives. It’s him, and the stabbing fears in his head that he can’t seem to wear down. Being with Snafu had always helped it in the past, and as he wanders he hopes he’ll help again. That he won’t turn him away, reveal some secret hatred that explains why he left without a word, leaving Eugene to wake up alone. 

He hates to remember that moment, but it’s a visceral one that never fails to bring tears to his eyes. How he’d been woken by the sharp halting of the train, figuring they’d reached New Orleans, and while he hadn’t wanted to say good-bye to Snafu, hadn’t wanted to have to watch him get off the train and walk away, he’d planned to trade addresses, information, so they could keep in touch at least, though what he really wanted to do was to follow Snafu off of the train, and blend into the city with him. To start over fresh. He’d been half-asleep enough that he hadn’t been able to stop the tears before they fell, feeling the eyes of the other soldiers on him as he’d grabbed his things and nearly run off the train. Sid had asked him why he was crying, what was wrong, but he couldn’t bring himself to say, and Sid was kind enough to let it be as he drove him home. Drying the tears before they’d gotten there had been difficult, because every time he started to he’d think of Snafu again, and they’d start anew. The nights at home after were a mix of tears, some for the nightmares that haunted him, some for the fact that he was waking up alone, without the one person beside him that he knew could comfort him, would understand. 

He’d sworn never to wear a uniform again, but he thought it might help him here. The material itches him, and he wants nothing more than to have already found Snafu, to be in his home, stripping off at least the uniform coat as they sit down to talk. 

He wanders down another set of streets, unsure of what exactly he’s hoping to see. Someone who might be a family member, with a similar mop of curls on their head? Another service member, who might somehow know of Snafu and be able to direct him to the right door (and there are so many doors, opening and closing as the city vibrates and moves around him, like he isn’t even there.) It dawns on him that he’ll have no choice but to seem strange, and must start simply asking people if they know him. 

The first few people shrug, chuckle, and apologize that they don’t know who Merriell Shelton is. Neither do they know of anyone calling themselves ‘Snafu.’ 

He wanders on, briefly thinking of stopping to find a room, food, a break. But the idea of it, being alone again in a strange room with Snafu somewhere in the city rubs him the wrong way. He won’t be able to rest fully, if he stops, so he may as well keep on. 

The city is beautiful. It matches Snafu that way. But as he roves, his suitcase heavy in his hand, he wishes Snafu was beside him, telling him the hundred thousand little stories about the city that he knows he must have. In their foxholes, they’d all occasionally yelled at Snafu to hush, his mouth always going with some story or opinion or complaint. Now the silence feels like punishment, and if he was there right now Eugene would just listen, soak up every word no matter what it was about. 

The city speaks, though it cannot fill the silence beside him. He drifts through the sounds, peering into windows and open doorways of homes and bars and shops and any building he walks past. Music and talking and shouting and footsteps collide kaleidoscopic in his ears, but none bearing the one sound that he’d run to if he heard it. He knows it’s naive, to think that somehow Snafu will just be there, in some random bar. The chances are low. At the same time, if he doesn’t check each one, then he might miss him, and he’ll never forgive himself for that. 

Because there won’t be a chance to forgive. It’s easier to say the other option now, as the sun sets and darkness overtakes him. He knows where the river is, found it on a map that he keeps tucked in his suitcase, along with a few heavy rocks that leave marks on his packed clothes, and the bottle of pills (something strong for pain that he stole from his father’s bag) that he’ll take beforehand. Death is never easy, he knows that, as well as he knows it’s a mistaken thought anyone could have. But he has seen death, and knows there is no true easing into it. But the pills might give him a haze, at least, so even as the worst of it takes him and water fills his lungs he can think he’s dreaming. 

He isn’t giving up yet though. He’s got no return ticket to Mobile, and all the money he has to his name with him. He’ll stay and search until it runs out, and then…

The rocks clatter in the suitcase as he switches it to his other hand, his arms sore at hauling them. Physical weight in addition to the immaterial weight that weighs so heavily on his mind. 

He ponders where he’ll settle for the night. It has to be somewhere, even if he doesn’t want to stop. He hasn’t slept decently for at least three days, and the weariness pulls at him even as he pushes forward. 

He blames the weariness as he nears the river, unsure of where else to go, staring out at it, and at the person sitting on a set of concrete steps that lead into the river. 

The moonlight illuminates the curls, and the shine of the glass bottle in the person’s hand. He can barely see it, but feels it in his bones. He knows that hand, those fingers. He watched them pull a trigger, fire mortars, hold the end of a stretcher, and nearly touch his on the nights they sat close in their foxhole. 

He lets the suitcase drop with a clatter, ignoring the breaking of the clasp and the rocks tumbling out of the case, his clothes falling to the ground.

“Snafu?” 

The person turns, and spits out the liquor in his mouth. “Sledgehammer?” 

His heart stops. It was that easy. There was a path the whole time, he just didn’t know he was on it. 

“What are you doin’ here?” Snafu is drunk, slurring his words so that in combination with his accent, if you didn’t know him, you’d probably struggle to understand him.

But he knows him, knows that voice, and those eyes that are staring at him like they don’t believe he’s real. 

“I-” he interrupts himself to gather his things before running to the steps, only to drop them beside them as he sits down by Snafu. “I needed…” 

The words are stuck in his throat, though he desperately wants to say them. Finally he manages something. “I missed you.” 

“That’s all?” Snafu smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. There’s something else there, something pained and sad. He knows it, has seen it in his own eyes ever since he got home to a mirror and could really look at himself. 

“No,” Eugene replies, and he picks up one of the rocks, turns it over in his hands. “I needed to find you. I can’t…I’m not…”

Snafu frowns, leans back and around him to fumble at the rest of the suitcase’s strewn contents. He comes back with the bottle of pills, and looks to the rock, and then to the river, and Eugene knows he’s caught onto what the other option was. 

“You found me,” Snafu says, and sets the bottle down as he takes the rock from Eugene’s hand, and tosses it into the river. He holds out his hand for the next rock, and then the two after that, tossing each one into the river. He grabs the pill bottle again. “So you won’t need any of this.” 

Eugene touches his hand gently. “My father’s…he doesn’t know that I have them. I should try to get them back to him.” 

Snafu nods, but takes the bottle and puts it in the pocket of his pants. “We’ll bury it outside my place. Can mark where we put it. I’m not lettin’ you bring ‘em inside.” 

“Fair enough,” Eugene says. He doesn’t need them anymore, but at the same time thinking of his father means he can’t bear to toss them away, even if he never goes back to Mobile. 

Snafu stands, stumbling, and holds out his hand to help Eugene up, his bottle of liquor abandoned on the side of the step. The contact is brief, but their eyes meet as it happens, and Eugene is relieved to find Snafu has tears running down his face as well. 

He picks up his remaining things, shuffles them into his suitcase as best he can and holds it carefully in his arms when he realizes it will no longer clasp shut. 

Snafu leads him through winding streets, swaying slightly as he goes. He doesn’t need to say much for Eugene to see he’s been struggling as well. His clothes are disheveled, and he seems…so tired. Eugene knows that sort of tired. 

They end up in front of a small house, one of the smallest Eugene thinks he’s ever seen, wedged between a hotel and an apartment building, with just a small patch of grass near the front door. 

Snafu drops to his knees, and digs up a small bit of the grass, just big enough to fit the pill bottle. He drops it into the hole, covers it up again, and places a small smooth rock from the sidewalk over it. “I don’t want you goin’ anywhere near this, y’hear me?” 

“I won’t. I promise. I don’t need them now,” Eugene replies, and he hears his voice shuddering, the tears falling fast enough that he can’t even try to stop them. He found him, he found him, maybe now they can keep each other afloat, instead of sinking while everyone else watches them drown. 

Snafu lets them in, and Eugene bites back a gasp. It’s so empty. There’s a table, small with one chair that looks like it’s been broken at least once. The couch looks old, and a blanket and pillow lay on it in a way to suggest they’re used often. The walls are bare, and as he sets down his suitcase and follows Snafu into the tiny kitchen area, he sees the cupboards are almost as bare. Some booze, bread and cheese in the fridge, a couple of bottles of soda on the counter. But that’s it. 

“You did what I been thinkin’ of doin’ for weeks now,” Snafu says, handing him a bottle of soda, then leading the few steps back to the living area. “Was goin’ to go find you. You beat me to it.” 

“You’ve been…” 

“Rough,” Snafu says, dropping onto the couch, tossing the blanket and pillow to the floor, and motioning for Eugene to join him. 

He sets the soda bottle on the table, and goes to the couch. “Me too. No one here gets it. They don’t even try. I don’t think they know how to, sometimes.” 

Snafu nods. “Most I’ve been able to manage is a job, to get this place. Sorry it looks like shit.” 

“Don’t apologize. I’d be in similar straits, if I hadn’t gone back to my parents. My mother was the one makin’ sure I got up and moved, cleaned. Still haven’t been able to try a job,” Eugene says. “Your parents-” 

“Less said the better,” Snafu interrupts, and Eugene watches his eyes go to the beer bottles on the kitchen counter, just visible from the couch. 

“You can tell me. If it’d help,” Eugene says. He doesn’t want to pry, if Snafu isn’t ready to talk. But it feels like they both are, that the dam is ready to burst on both sides, now that they’re finally near each other again, alone together. 

Still, he jumps slightly when Snafu falls against him, sobbing. He moves to hold him, as tight and as close as he can, pressing his face to the back of Snafu’s neck as he does. He smells of alcohol and sweat, but at the same time familiar. His own tears had only barely halted, and they fall again as they huddle together. 

After a few more moments, Snafu sits back up, but it almost doesn’t look like him. He’s never seen Snafu like this. 

His eyes are wide, red, tears staining his cheeks. He can barely catch his breath for sobbing, and he looks…lost.

“Things have never been great with ‘em,” Snafu hiccups. “I thought they’d be happy I was back. The great war hero, with blood on his hands and nightmares in his head. And that’s the part they couldn’t stand. They were happy until they saw that I couldn’t sleep, hell, I still can’t sleep. Till they saw I wasn’t who I was when I left. They didn’t like that version of me, but they hate this one. Momma told me I could come back when I get my shit together.” 

At that, Snafu laughs. “Sledgehammer, I think my shit is lost for good. Strewn all across the Pacific, in Guadacanal, and Peleliu, and Pavuvu, and Okinawa, and China. I’m never gonna get it together again. And even if I could…” 

His eyes squint shut as more tears fall, and Eugene pulls him back close.

“I wouldn’t want to go back. How fucked up is that? You’re supposed to want your family, when you get back. But it doesn’t make a difference, whether they’re with me or not. I’m still fallin’ apart, and if I go back all they’ll do is ride me for it. Tell me how I should be grateful I’m alive, as if I’m not. Even when all I’ve wanted to do was-” 

He interrupts himself with another sob, and Eugene wishes there was a way to hold him even tighter, to somehow transmit his love and caring directly into Snafu’s bloodstream via touch. He settles for his words. 

“I understand. My parents…aren’t like that, but they don’t get it. My father wakes up sometimes, and he’ll find wherever I’m sittin’ when I can’t sleep. I think he wants to be more sympathetic than he is, but there’s always this glint in his eye, that I don’t even think he means to show. That he knows he was right, that I’m not the same person who went and enlisted and shipped out. That I remind him of the Great War veterans that he treated.” 

Snafu sits back up, and shakes his head. “He should just be grateful you made it back. I know I am.” 

Eugene isn’t sure if he means it just in regards to the war, or in regards to him coming to New Orleans, but it hardly matters when Snafu’s hand, dirt from the patch of grass he dug up under his fingernails, reaches up to caress his face. There’s so much that’s gone unsaid, though he knows both of their feelings, can see it and hear it and taste it as he leans into Snafu’s touch, reaching up to hold his wrist and keep his hand there. 

“He is. But them bein’ grateful doesn’t erase everythin’ else. The looks, the frustration that I’m not who they expected would be comin’ home. It’s difficult to bear,” Eugene whispers, shakily letting his lips move to kiss Snafu’s hand. 

“You stayin’ long?” Snafu asks, his voice shuddering for a different reason now, Eugene is sure. 

“I didn’t buy a train ticket back. It was either find you and stay or…” Eugene moves his lips down Snafu’s wrist kissing in between his words. “You don’t want to go back to yours, and I don’t want to go back to mine. I want you, I want someone who I know loves me and cares and understands. Who won’t judge me when I wake up screaming.” 

Snafu’s other hand reaches over to cup his chin, pulling him up and to his face. His lips are soft, and he tastes of the liquor he was drinking, and it feels like mercy. Finally, he’s safe. They’re safe, with each other. 

“I promise to find a job though,” Eugene murmurs as they slip apart. “Help you pay for this place. Get some food in those cupboards.” 

Snafu nods. “I’m so glad you found me.” 

“Me too,” Eugene says as Snafu pulls him from the couch, and leads him down the short, dark hallway to the bedroom. 

It’s just as sparse as the rest of the house, nothing on the walls. A small dresser on one side, a bed big enough for two on a metal frame on the other. The bed sheets look worn, and as he strips down to his underwear and slides under them he wonders if they weren’t taken from Snafu’s room back with his family. 

They don’t do much more than kiss, and touch. They could do more, but not this night. Tonight it’s enough just to be close and kiss until they’re both breathless, pausing only for air and to revel in one another, and in being together. 

Later, they’ll sleep, one of their first nights where neither of them wake up from the nightmares, fearful and screaming. Snafu will reveal he doesn’t work for the next two days, and slowly it will all fall into place. Cleaning the house up, Eugene putting his things away in the empty drawer of the dresser in their bedroom. Snafu showing him around the city, and all of his stories of it are even better than Eugene expected. He comes alive, talking about it, and for a bit the pain and tiredness leave his eyes. There is still healing to do, and neither of them expect perfection from each other; they are flawed and broken, but they are flawed and broken together. And that’s enough to make Eugene kick away the rock from where they’d buried the pills, so he forgets the spot, to make Snafu narrow down his cache of booze to just a few bottles of beer that they share in the evenings, after they’re both home from work. 

He can see it all, as he lays there with Snafu against him, his head on his chest. For now, there is this, the moment of success and surviving, and the wonderful thought that they’ll get to have more moments like it together.


End file.
